Introduction: Installing Attiny13 Core Files

By
About: I am a physician by trade. After a career in the pharmeceutical world I decided to take it a bit slower and do things I like. Other than my hobbies that involves grassroots medicine in S.E.&P Asia. I have buil…

In an instructable "Make an Attiny13 based IR proximity sensor for $2.42" by Dustin Andrews refers to having to install the Attiny13 core files.

Unfortunately the core files that are linked to do not contain the boards.txt file that will let the Attiny 13 show up as choice under 'Tools-boards' in the IDE. If you are a novice at installing core files this may seem daunting, but since I just did it, I thought I'd just share that knowledge with you.

Do the following:
-Download the Attiny cores from: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ard-core13/
-Go to your sketches folder
-most likely there is a folder called 'hardware' if not, create that.
-open the hardware folder
-create a folder called 'attiny13'
-open that folder
-create a folder called cores
-open that folder
-create a new folder called 'core13'
-so now you have the structure /hardware/attiny13/cores/core13
-open that deepest folder and unzip the attiny core files to that folder
-go back to your /hardware/attiny13 folder
-create a text file called 'boards.txt'
open that file.
paste the following text in that file:

###########################################################################
attiny13int.name=Attiny13 @ 128 KHz (internal watchdog oscillator)
attiny13int.upload.using=arduino:arduinoisp
attiny13int.upload.maximum_size=1024
attiny13int.upload.speed=250 # important for not losing connection to a slow processor
attiny13int.bootloader.low_fuses=0x7B
attiny13int.bootloader.high_fuses=0xFF
attiny13int.bootloader.unlock_bits=0x3F
attiny13int.bootloader.lock_bits=0x3F
attiny13int.build.mcu=attiny13
attiny13int.build.f_cpu=128000
attiny13int.build.core=core13

###############################################################

attiny13at4.name=ATtiny13 @ 4.8MHz (internal 4.8 MHz clock)
attiny13at4.upload.using=arduino:arduinoisp
attiny13at4.bootloader.low_fuses=0x69
attiny13at4.bootloader.high_fuses=0xff
attiny13at4.upload.maximum_size=1024
attiny13at4.build.mcu=attiny13
attiny13at4.build.f_cpu=600000
attiny13at4.build.core=core13
###############################################################

attiny13.name=ATtiny13 @ 9.6MHz (interne 9.6 MHz clock)
attiny13.upload.using=arduino:arduinoisp
attiny13.bootloader.low_fuses=0x7a
attiny13.bootloader.high_fuses=0xff
attiny13.upload.maximum_size=1024
attiny13.build.mcu=attiny13
attiny13.build.f_cpu=1200000
attiny13.build.core=core13
###############################################################

I got this 'boards.txt' file from here, but had to adapt it a little as that file 'sneekishly' suddenly changes the programmer in its last definition and also I had big trouble getting more than 2 boards to show up, until I realised that 2 of the board definitions carried the same name, so I had to change that as well. Also, the names of the boards are not entirely correct. The fuses on the 4.8 MHz board are 0x69 and 0xFF. That indicates that the prescaler is already set to division by eight, which corresponds with the f_cpu of 600.000.
For the 9.6MHz internal clock board, we see that the fuses 0x7a and 0xFF are in fact correct for 9.6MHz without prescaler, but then the f_cpu of 1200.000 is not correct, that points to a division by 8 for which the fuses should be 0x6A and 0xFF. However, i didnt mess with that and everything worked fine, but the timings might be off.
You may want to adapt your boards.txt file once you have it all installed to reflect the true settings. Also, you will not find the 128kHz setting very useful and the danger is that you may not be able to communicate with your chip anymore because it becomes too slow

So, just as a final check that you have done everything right:
Go to your hardware folderYou should see a folder there called attiny13
Open that folder
It should have 2 entries: a folder called 'cores' and a text file called 'boards.txt'
open the folder 'cores'
That should have one entry: a folder called 'core13'
open 'core13'. There you should find 13 files with 'h', 'c' and 'cpp' extensions.

To make it easy I made a zip file that should unpack with the right directory structure. Unzip it in the 'hardware' folder.

Update for IDE 1.6.x The zip file installs correct for the 1.0.6 IDE. For the IDE 1.6.x see my reply to Danny-dan in the comments, or look in the article : Installing Attiny13 core in 1.6.x and 1.7,x IDE

As an added note: in 2015 when i wanted to program some Attiny13's, seemingly i had screwed up my installation and I couldnt program the chips anymore. Apparently I had forgotten I wrote this ibble. A search found my own ibble and when i installed the zip file... everything went like clockwork again.